


...For Love Is Heaven, and Heaven Is Love

by HawkMoth



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Afterlife, Gen, Psychopomps, Redemption, So very Gen!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:50:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawkMoth/pseuds/HawkMoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Look, Monsieur, where all the children play...</i>
</p>
<p>"She presides over a most beautiful garden which is always full of children."</p>
<p>But Fantine will meet others in Heaven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	...For Love Is Heaven, and Heaven Is Love

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired, in part, by various discussions online about Barricade Heaven and other versions of a Les Miserables afterlife. 
> 
> Also, I really missed the line quoted above in the movie.
> 
> And...I'm still gathering ideas to finish it.

******

_Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above: For love is heaven, and heaven is love._ \-- Sir Walter Scott

 

******

Deprived of her child in life, Fantine serves as the mother of many in Heaven. She presides over a most beautiful garden which is always full of children. Girls and boys, all ages, all colors. They come and go at will, for there are other gardens they may visit, other places where they can find happiness. Some may have families to reunite with, others do not. But they love coming back here to play, and she loves to watch them playing, free from any of the troubles they may have endured in life.

The new ones are sometimes sad at first, and confused, not really comprehending where they are. But once she has dried their tears, kissed their cheeks and learned their names, they know it is all right to be happy, joining the others in their games.

Time is an illusion here, although it seems to pass as days and nights, as it did in life. Everything here is more real, yet not real. It is a truth that one learns to accept, along with knowledge about was passes in the life left behind. One only has to think, and grace is granted. Fantine knows that M. Madeline kept his promise. Cosette is happy and loved. Her life progresses. The devotion and care Fantine was never able to lavish on her own precious child is shared by the innocent souls now in her charge.

She loves her garden. It is perfect in all ways, full of green, growing things. Flowers grow in riotous profusion, their colors and scents merging into a perfect medley. There are soft lawns where the children play le jeu de Graces, boules or le loup. Among the hedges and trees it is cache-cache. In quiet corners the girls have their dolls, in rocky beds the boys their tin soldiers. At the far end of the garden, a gently sloping hill rises, where the breeze is exactly right for flying kites.

Some times the weather is warm, and in the pavilion from which Fantine watches over her charges there is always cool limonade; when the children wish for winter and frolicking in the snow there is chocolat chaud. Here also there are quiet nooks with wide, softly-cushioned sofas, and low tables full of picture and story books. If they had not learned to read in life, in Heaven they are gifted with that ability, although they all love to hear Fantine read to them. (She, too, has been blessed with far more skill and comprehension of letters than she had in her living years.)

Outside the boundary of her garden, beyond the hedges and the low stone wall, outside the gate (which is only decorative; anyone may enter and be welcomed, although thus far no adult has stopped by looking for a place of retreat) fields and meadows stretch without end. In the distance, there are mountains in one direction, woodlands in another; when she looks out Fantine can discern the outline of a city lying in-between. The tree-lined avenue that wends it way past the gate seems to lead there. There are always people passing by, but she does not pay them much attention. She is more focused on the children, the one who have come through other gates on their own. 

Nor does she have any desire to travel down that road herself. None of the rewards which might be waiting in that city on the heavenly horizon could equal the joy she had found here. So time, as it exists, passes. She is content, watching the children play, knowing that her Cosette is safe and loved. 

Then one "day," a boy saunters up to the gate. He is fair-haired and open-faced, almost angelic but for the knowing gleam in his eye. He watches the children at play, smiling at the littlest ones, and his glance at Fantine as she approaches him is sly, not the least bit sad or shy.

******

**Author's Note:**

> I have loved the Walter Scott quote for years, since my favorite aunt gave me an anniversary card with it (which I still have.) It's also used at the end of one of my favorite old movies, "A Matter of Life and Death," (aka "Stairway to Heaven") which is one of those unique British war movies that offers an interesting take on the nature of Heaven. Highly recommended!


End file.
